WAJDA, Andrzej

W Academy Award for services to film, 1982; Officier, Legion d’Honneur,

France, 1982.

Nationality: Polish. Born: Suwałki, Poland, 6 March 1926. Educa-

tion: Fine Arts Academy, Kraków, 1945–48; High School of
Films as Director and Scriptwriter:
Cinematography, Lodz, 1950–52. Military Service: Served in the
A.K. (Home Army) of the Polish government in exile, from 1942.
Family: Married 1) Beata Tyszkiewicz, 1967 (marriage dissolved), 1950 Kiedy ty śpisz (While You Sleep); Zły chłopiec (The Bad Boy)
one daughter; 2) Krystyna Zachwatowicz, 1975. Career: Assistant to 1951 Ceramika Iłżecka (The Pottery of Ilzecka)
director Aleksandr Ford, 1953, then directed first feature, Pokolenie, 1955 Pokolenie (A Generation); Idę do słoñca (I Walk to the Sun)
1955; directed first play, 1959; made first film outside Poland, 1957 Kanał (They Loved Life; Sewer)
Sibirska Ledi Magbet, for Avala Films, Belgrade, 1962; directed 1958 Popiół i diament (Ashes and Diamonds)
Pilatus und andere for West German TV, 1972; following imposition 1959 Lotna
of martial law, concentrated on theatrical projects in Poland and film 1960 Niewinni czarodzieje (Innocent Sorcerers)
productions outside Poland; government dissolved Wajda’s Studio 1961 Samson
X film production group, 1983; managing director, Teatr Powszechny, 1972 Sibirska Ledi Magbet (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; Fury Is
Warsaw, from 1989; senator, Polish People’s Republic, 1989–91. a Woman; Siberian Lady Macbeth); ‘‘Warszawa’’ episode
Awards: Grand Prix, Moscow Film Festival, for The Promised Land, of L’Amour à Vingt Ans
1975; Palme d’Or, Cannes Festival, for Man of Iron, 1981; British 1965 Popióły (Ashes)
1967 Bramy raju (Gates to Paradise; The Gates of Heaven; The
Holy Apes)
1968 Wszystko na sprzedaż (Everything for Sale); Przekładaniec
(Roly-Poly)
1969 Polowanie na muchy (Hunting Flies); Makbet (Macbeth) (for
Polish TV)
1970 Krajobraz po bitwie (Landscape after the Battle); Brzezina
(The Birchwood)
1972 Pilatus und andere—ein Film für Karfreitag (Pilate and
Others); Wesele (The Wedding)
1974 Ziemia obiecana (Promised Land) (also as series on Polish TV)
1976 Smuga cienia (The Shadow Line)
1977 Człowiek z marmuru (Man of Marble); Bez znieczulenia
(Without Anesthetic); Umarła klasa (for TV)
1978 Zaproszenie do wnętrza (Invitation to the Inside) (doc)
1979 Dyrygent (The Conductor); Panny z Wilka (The Girls from
Wilko)
1981 Człowiek z żelaza (Man of Iron)
1982 Danton
1983 Eine Liebe in Deutschland (Un amour en Allemagne; A Love
in Germany)
1985 Kronika wypadków miłosnych (Chronicle of a Love Affair)
1987 Les Possédés (The Possessed)
1990 Korczak
1993 The Ring with the Crowned Eagle
1994 Natasha
1995 Wielki tydzien (Holy Week) (+ co-sc)
1996 Panna Nikt (Miss Nobody)
1999 Pan Tadeusz (Pan Tadeusz: The Last Foray in Lithuania)
Andrzej Wajda (+ co-sc)

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Publications On WAJDA: articles—

By WAJDA: books— Szydlowski, Roman, ‘‘The Tragedy of a Generation,’’ in Film

(Poland), no. 46, 1958.
Michalek, Boleslaw, ‘‘Polish Notes,’’ in Sight and Sound (London),
Un Cinéma nommé désir, Paris, 1986. Winter 1958/59.
Double Vision: My Life in Film, New York, 1989; London, 1990. Higham, Charles, ‘‘Grasping the Nettle: The Films of Andrzej
Wajda on Film: A Master’s Notes, Venice, 1992. Wajda,’’ in Hudson Review (Nutley, New Jersey), Autumn 1965.
‘‘Wajda Issue’’ of Etudes Cinématographiques (Paris), no. 69–72, 1968.
Austen, David, ‘‘A Wajda Generation,’’ in Films and Filming (Lon-
By WAJDA: articles—
don), July 1968.
Toeplitz, K., ‘‘Wajda Redivivus,’’ in Film Quarterly (Berkeley),
‘‘Destroying the Commonplace,’’ in Films and Filming (London), Winter 1969/70.
November 1961. Cowie, Peter, ‘‘Wajda Redux,’’ in Sight and Sound (London), Win-
‘‘Andrzej Wajda Speaking,’’ in Kino (Warsaw), no. 1, 1968. ter 1979/80.
‘‘Living in Hope,’’ an interview with Gordon Gow, in Films and ‘‘Wajda Issue’’ of Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), 1 January 1980.
Filming (London), February 1973. Aufderheide, Pat, and others, ‘‘Solidarity and the Polish Cinema,’’ in
‘‘Filmer les noces,’’ in Positif (Paris), February 1974. Cineaste (New York), vol. 13, no. 3, 1984.
Interview with K. K. Przybylska, in Literature/Film Quarterly (Salis- Engelberg, S., ‘‘Wadja’s Korczak Sets Loose the Furies,’’ in New
bury, Maryland), Winter 1977. York Times, 14 April 1991.
‘‘Between the Permissible and the Impermissible,’’ an interview with Ball, E., ‘‘Citizen Wadja,’’ in Village Voice (New York), 23 April 1991.
Coates, Paul, ‘‘Revolutionary Spirits: the Wedding of Wajda and
D. Bickley and L. Rubinstein, in Cineaste (New York), Win-
Wyspianki,’’ in Literature/Film Quarterly (Salisbury), April 1992.
ter 1980/81.
Dowell, Pat, ‘‘The Man Who Put Poland on the Postwar Map of
‘‘Wajda August ‘81,’’ an interview and article by G. Moszcz, in Sight
Cinema,’’ in Cineaste (New York), vol. 19, no. 4, 1993.
and Sound (London), Winter 1982. Falkowska, J., ‘‘‘The Political’ in the Films of Andrzej Wajda and
Interview with Gideon Bachmann, in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Krzysztof Kieslowski,’’ in Cinema Journal (Austin), Winter 1995.
Winter 1982/83. Epstein, Jan, ‘‘Is Cinema Dead?’’ in Cinema Papers (Fitzroy),
Interview with Marcel Ophuls, in American Film (Washington, August 1997.
D.C.), October 1983. Macnab, Geoffrey, in Sight and Sound (London), February 1998.
Interview with Dan Yakir, in Film Comment (New York), November/ Seberechts, Karin, ‘‘Andrzej Wajda Homage,’’ in Film en Televisie
December 1984. + Video (Brussels), January 1999.
Interview with K. Farrington and L. Rubenstein, in Cineaste (New
York), vol. 14, no. 2, 1985. * * *
Interview with W. Wertenstein, in Sight and Sound (London), Sum-
mer 1985. The history of Polish film is as old as the history of filmmaking in
Interview with T. Hubelski, in Kino (Warsaw), May 1990. most European countries. For entire decades, however, its range was
Interview with J. J. Skreiberg, in Film and Kino (Oslo), no. 4, 1990. limited to Polish territory and a Polish audience. Only after the
Interview with P. Dowell, in Cineaste (New York), vol. 19, no 4, 1993. Second World War, at the end of the 1950s, did the phenomenon
‘‘Wajdas ofullbordade,’’ in Chaplin (Stockholm), vol. 36, no. 2, 1994. known as the ‘‘Polish school of filmmaking’’ make itself felt as a part
Interview with wanda Wertenstein, in Kino (Warsaw), Novem- of world cinema. The phenomenon went hand in hand with the
ber 1994. appearance of a new generation of film artists who, despite differ-
ences in their artistic proclivities, have a number of traits in common.
‘‘Interview with Martti Puukko, in Filmihullu (Helsinki), no. 5–6, 1998.
They are approximately the same age, having been born in the 1920s.
They spent their early youth in the shadow of the fascist occupation
On WAJDA: books— and shared more or less similar postwar experiences. This is also the
first generation of cinematically accomplished artists with a complete
McArthur, Colin, editor, Andrzej Wajda: Polish Cinema, London, 1970. grasp of both the theoretical and practical sides of filmmaking.
Their debut was conditioned by the social climate, which was
Michalek, Boleslaw, The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda, translated by
characterized by a desire to eliminate the negative aspects of postwar
Edward Rothert, London, 1973.
development labelled as the cult of personality. The basic theme of
Curi, Giandomenico, Cenere e diamenti: il cinema di Andrzej Wajda,
their work was the effort to come to grips with the painful experience
Rome, 1980. of the war, the resistance to the occupation, and the struggle to put
Douin, Jean-Luc, Wajda, Paris, 1981. a new face on Polish society and the recent past. Temporal distance
Paul, David W., editor, Politics, Art, and Commitment in the Eastern allowed them to take a sober look at all these experiences without
European Cinema, New York, 1983. schematic depictions, without illusions, and without pathetic cere-
Karpinski, Maciej, The Theatre of Andrzej Wajda, Cambridge, 1989. mony. They wanted to know the truth about those years, in which the
Kakolewski, Krzysztof, Diament odnaleziony w popiele, Warsaw, 1995. foundations of their contemporary life were formed, and express it in
Nurczy ’nska-Fidelska, Ewelina, Polska klasyka literacka wedlug the specific destinies of the individuals who lived, fought, and died in
Andrzeja Wajdy, Katowice, 1998. those crucial moments of history. And one of the most important traits

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uniting all the members of the ‘‘school’’ was the attempt to debunk with more controversy than the preceding works. In Danton and
the myths and legends about those times and the people who similarly in Les Possédés another element is present: the description
shaped them. and criticism of destructive revolutionary forces, which lust for power
The most prominent representative of the Polish school is Andrzej and assert themselves brutally without regard for the rights of others.
Wajda. In the span of a few short years he made three films, Wajda’s work reveals many forms and many layers. Over time,
Pokolenie, Kanał, and Popiół i diament, which form a kind of loose historical films alternate with films on contemporary subjects; films
trilogy and can be considered among the points of departure for the with a broad social sweep alternate with films that concentrate on
emergence of popular Poland. Pokolenie tells of a group of young intimate human experiences. Wajda is conscious of these alternations.
men and women fighting in occupied Warsaw; Kanał is a tragic story From history he returns to contemporaneity, so as not to lose contact
of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising; Popiół i diament takes place at the with the times and with his audience. After a series of war films, he
watershed between war and peace. Crystallized in these three films made the picture Niewinni czarodzieje, whose young heroes search
are the fundamental themes of Wajda’s work, themes characteristic of for meaning in their lives. In the film Wszystko na sprzedaż, following
some other adherents of the ‘‘school’’ as well. In these films we also the tragic death of his friend, the actor Zbigniew Cybulski, he became
see the formation of Wajda’s own artistic stamp, his creative method, absorbed in the traces a person leaves behind in the memories and
which consists of an emotional approach to history, a romantic hearts of friends; at the same time he told of the problems of artistic
conception of human fate, a rich visual sense, and dense expression searching and creation. Wajda’s attitudes on these questions are
that is elaborate to the point of being baroque. In his debut, Pokolenie, revealed again in the next film, Polowanie na muchy, and even more
he renounces the dramatic aspect of the battle against the occupation emphatically in Dyrygent, where they are linked to the motif of
and concentrates on the inner world of people for whom discovering faithfulness to one’s work and to oneself, to one’s ideals and convic-
the truth about their struggle was the same as discovering the truth tions. The motif links Dyrygent with Popiół i diament. Another theme
about love. In Kanał he expresses disagreement with a myth long ago of Dyrygent—the inseparability of one’s personal, private life from
rooted in the consciousness of the Polish people and propounded in one’s work life and the mutual influence of the two—is the basic
portrayals of the Warsaw Uprising—that the greatest meaning of life problem treated in Bez znieczulenia. In Wajda there are many such
is death on the barricades. In the film Popiół i diament we hear for the examples of the migration of themes and motifs from one film to
first time in clear tones the theme of the Pole at the crossroads of another. They affirm the unity of his work despite the fact that
history and the tragedy of his choice. Wajda expresses this theme not alongside great and powerful works there are lesser and weaker films.
in abstract constructions but in a concrete reality with concrete heroes. Such, for example, is Wajda’s sole attempt in the genre of comedy,
Wajda returns to the war experience several times. Lotna, in which Polowanie na muchy, or the adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel
the historical action precedes the above-mentioned trilogy, takes Heart of Darkness, which underwent a cinematic transformation.
place in the tragic September of 1939, when Poland was overrun. Another unifying element in Wajda’s oeuvre is his faithfulness to
Here Wajda continues to take a critical view of national tradition. literary and artistic sources. A significant portion of his films come
Bitterness and derision toward the romanticization of the Polish from literature, while the pictorial aspect finds its inspiration in the
struggle are blended here with sober judgment, and also with under- romantic artistic tradition. In addition to such broad historical fres-
standing for the world and for the people playing out the last coes as Popióły or Ziemia obiecana, these include, for example,
tragicomic act on the historical stage. In the film Samson, the hero, Stanislaw Wyspianski’s drama of 1901, Wesele, important for its
a Jewish youth, throws off his lifelong passivity and by this action grasp of Poland at a bleak point in the country’s history. Wajda
steps into the struggle. Finally, there is the 1970 film Krajobraz po translated it to the screen in all the breadth of its meaning, with an
bitwie, which, however, differs sharply from Wajda’s early films. The accent on the impossibility of mutual understanding between dispa-
director himself characterized this difference in the following way: rate cultural milieus. The director also selected from the literary
‘‘It’s not I who am drawing back [from the war]. It’s the war. It and heritage works that would allow him to address man’s existential
I are growing old together, and therefore it is more and more difficult questions, attitudes towards life and death. This theme resonates most
for me to discover anything in it that was close to me.’’ fully in adaptations of two works by the writer Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz,
Krajobraz po bitwie has become Wajda’s farewell to the war for Brzezina and Panny z Wilka, in which the heroes are found not in
a long time. This does not mean, however, that the fundamental history but in life, where they are threatened not by war but by old age,
principles of the artistic method found in his early films have illness, and death, and where they must struggle only with them-
disappeared from his work, in spite of the fact that his work has selves. To address such existential tension Wajda also developed
developed in the most diverse directions over the course of forty a transcription of Mikhail Bulgakov’s prose work The Master and
years. The basic principles remain and, with time, develop, differenti- Margarita, filmed for television in the German Democratic Republic
ate, and join with other motifs brought by personal and artistic under the title Pilatus und andere-ein Film für Karfreitag.
experience. Some of the early motifs can be found in other contexts. In the 1980s, after a number of years, Wajda goes back to the
Man’s dramatic attitude towards history, the Pole at the crossroads of subject of war. It is in the nostalgic Kronika wypadków miłosnych,
history and his tragic choice—these we can find in the film Popióły, in which deals with young people into whose loves and disappointments
the image of the fate of Poland in the period of the Napoleonic Wars, creeps the premonition of a military catastrophe and death. Eine Liebe
when a new society was taking shape in the oppressive atmosphere of in Deutschland is about the tragic consequences of the love felt by
a defeated country divided up among three victorious powers. People a married German woman for a Polish prisoner. And it is also the
living in a time of great changes are the main heroes of Ziemia subject of Korczak, the most important work of Wajda’s comeback.
obiecana, which portrays the precipitous, drastic, and ineluctable The director based Korczak on an authentic story, and the hero who
course of the transition from feudalism to the capitalist order. A man’s gave the film its name is a portrait of a real person. After the arrival of
situation at dramatic historical moments is also the subject of the films the German occupying forces in Poland, Korczak followed his
Człowiek z marmuru, Człowiek z żelaza, and Danton, which have met charges from an orphanage into the Jewish Ghetto, and in the end of

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his own free will into the extermination concentration camp of

Treblinka. With this film about Korczak Wajda closed, for the time
being, one of the great subjects of his life and work. He has done this
by employing the simplest and therefore the most effective method:
black-and-white photography, which renders a sober record of life in
a sealed-off ghetto and at the same time pays homage to the
unostentatious heroism of a man who, face to face with death, did not
forget the moral code of the human race.
Wajda’s oeuvre, encompassing artistic triumphs and failures,
forms a unified but incomplete whole. The affinity among his films is
determined by a choice of themes which enables him to depict great
historical syntheses, metaphors, and symbols. He is constantly drawn
to those moments in the destinies of individuals and groups that are
crossroads of events with tragic consequences. In his films the main
motifs of human existence are interwoven—death and life, love,
defeat, and the tragic dilemma of having to choose, the impossibility
of realizing great aspirations. All these motifs are subordinated to
history, even a feeling as subjective as love.
Wajda’s films have not been, and are not, uniformly received by
audiences or critics. They have always provoked discussions in which
enthusiasm has confronted condemnation and agreement has con-
fronted disagreement and even hostility; despite some failures, how-
ever, Wajda’s films have never been met with indifference.

—Blažena Urgošiková

WALSH, Raoul Raoul Walsh

Nationality: American. Born: New York City, 11 March 1887 (some

sources say 1892). Education: Attended Public School 93, New 1916 Blue Blood and Red (+ pr, sc); The Serpent (+ pr, sc); Pillars
York; also attended Seton Hall College. Family: Married 1) Miriam of Society
Cooper, 1916 (divorced 1927); 2) Mary Edna Simpson, 1941. Ca- 1917 The Honor System; The Silent Lie; The Innocent Sinner (+ sc);
reer: Sailed to Cuba on uncle’s trading ship, 1903; horse wrangler in Betrayed (+ sc); The Conqueror (+ sc); This Is the Life
Mexico, 1903–04; worked in variety of jobs in United States, includ- 1918 Pride of New York (+ sc); The Woman and the Law (+ sc); The
ing surgeon’s assistant and undertaker, 1904–10; cowboy actor in Prussian Cur (+ sc); On the Jump (+ sc); I’ll Say So
films for Pathé Studio, New Jersey, then for Biograph, from 1910; 1919 Should a Husband Forgive (+ sc); Evangeline (+ sc); Every
actor and assistant to D.W. Griffith, then director at Biograph, Mother’s Son (+ sc)
Hollywood, from 1912; director for William Fox, from 1916; lost eye 1920 The Strongest (+ sc); The Deep Purple; From Now On
in auto accident, 1928; introduced John Wayne as feature actor in The 1921 The Oath (+ pr, sc); Serenade (+ pr)
Big Trail, 1930; director for various studios, then retired to ranch, 1923 Lost and Found on a South Sea Island (Passions of the Sea);
1964. Died: In California, 31 December 1980. Kindred of the Dust (+ pr, sc)
1924 The Thief of Bagdad
1925 East of Suez (+ pr); The Spaniard (+ co-pr); The Wanderer
Films as Director: (+ co-pr)
1926 The Lucky Lady (+ co-pr); The Lady of the Harem; What Price
1912 The Life of General Villa (co-d, role as young Villa); Outlaw’s Glory
Revenge 1927 The Monkey Talks (+ pr); The Loves of Carmen (+ sc)
1913 The Double Knot (+ pr, sc, role); The Mystery of the Hindu 1928 Sadie Thompson (Rain) (+ co-sc, role); The Red Dance; Me
Image (+ pr, sc); The Gunman (+ pr, sc; credit contested) Gangster (+ co-sc)
1914 The Final Verdict (+ pr, sc, role); The Bowery 1929 In Old Arizona (co-d); The Cock-eyed World (+ co-sc); Hot
1915 The Regeneration (+ co-sc); Carmen (+ pr, sc); The Death for Paris (+ co-sc)
Dice (+ pr, sc; credit contested); His Return (+ pr); The 1930 The Big Trail
Greaser (+ pr, sc, role); The Fencing Master (+ pr, sc); A 1931 The Man Who Came Back; Women of all Nations; The Yellow
Man for All That (+ pr, sc, role); 11:30 P.M. (+ pr, sc); The Ticket
Buried Hand (+ pr, sc); The Celestial Code (+ pr, sc); A Bad 1932 Wild Girl; Me and My Gal
Man and Others (+ pr, sc); Home from the Sea; The Lone 1933 Sailor’s Luck; The Bowery; Going Hollywood
Cowboy (+ co-sc) 1935 Under Pressure; Baby Face Harrington; Every Night at Night

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